A mathematical interpretation of Dirac's formalism; Part A: Dirac bases in trajectory spaces (Q1820360)

The notion of Dirac basis is introduced. It is the continuous pendant of the discrete basis for Hilbert spaces. The introduction of this new notion is closely related to the theory of generalized functions. Here De Graaf's theory has been employed. It is based on the triplet \(S_{X,{\mathcal A}}\subset X\subset T_{X,{\mathcal A}}\) where X is a Hilbert space. In a well specified way any member of \(T_{X,{\mathcal A}}\) can be expanded with respect to a Dirac basis. Both the introduction of Dirac bases and a new interpretation of Dirac's bracket notion lead to a mathematical rigorization of various aspects of Dirac's formalism for quantum mechanics. This rigorization goes much beyond earlier proposals. Meanwhile a detailed account of Dirac's formalism has appeared in our book: A mathematical introduction to Dirac's formalism. North-Holland Math. Libr. 36 (1986). [For part B see the review below.]